Posted on 03/19/2006 4:48:55 PM PST by Lorianne
This was already posted? Did they mention Hernando de Soto?
Richard Lynn, Tatu Vanhanen. "IQ and the wealth of nations" Praeger, 2002, ISBN 027597510.
it was this very article, dude - right down to opening up with "the armpit of africa"
Read the article.
Two sons of rich politically connected families attend college in the United States together. One is from a Southeast Asian nation while the other is from Africa. Years later, they decide to visit each other to see how they've done.
First, the African man visits his friend in Southeast Asia. As he drives up the highway to the mansion, he sees five Mercedes Benz cars parked in front of a 20 bedroom mansion, with a staff of 20 servants. His friend invites him in and takes him out to the patio in the back, where a highway can be seen in the distance. He gestures toward the highway and says, "See that highway? 20 percent." (Indicating that he skimmed 20 percent from the cost of the highway.)
Then both friends travel to Africa, where they arrive at a mansion with ten Rolls Royce cars parked in front of a 50 bedroom mansion, with a staff of 100 servants. The African friend takes his Southeast Asian friend out to the patio in the back, where nothing but jungle can be seen. He gestures toward the jungle and says, "See that highway? 100 percent."
Basically, in Southeast Asia, the level of corruption is low enough that things still get done while in Africa, the level is so high that almost nothing gets done.
This is not rocket science, and one does not need multiple advanced degrees to see (or infer) the common ingredient:
Ruthlessness.
Elimination of class structure, and a ruthless absolute rejection of corruption in all forms, from the top down.
Marxism is the tempting illusion, but only free market ruthlessness seems to work; whether applied externally by the mean-exploitative colonial imperialists, or (very unlikely, almost impossible)internally from a few competent incorruptible and dedicated local leaders.
Ruthless means exactly that. Draconian, if necessary.
Singapore is perhaps the best example of the success of this paradigm.
Well, if they didn't mention Hernando do Soto, here it is. Check this one out if you haven't come across his work. He is one of a very few on earth who get the idea of property rights and capitalism as it should be.
as I already stated: it was this very article. there is no difference between that article and this article. that article was posted on FR last week.
The article doesn't mention de Soto. I was wondering if his name came up in discussion.
SCOTUS eminant domain ruling anyone?
Sam Kinison said it best "you people live in a desert! move to where the food is!"
RW,
I assume you mean Hernando de Soto.
His book, The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else is incredible. I highly recommend it.
If you've never read it, he argues (convincingly) that
it takes clear property rights for capitalism to work. In many countries described as poor, it may take 15 years to get a clear right to title of a property. I became aware of the blessings of inherting English law after reading this book.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465016154/sr=8-1/qid=1142818996/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9881337-7936863?%5Fencoding=UTF8
They must be drinking the same kind of water they drink in NO.
There were two reasons why the colonialists ran the countries better than the "Presidents for life" that have run them since decolonization.
1) The colonial rulers had reason to believe that they had to justify their actions (or lack thereof) to superiors.
2) The colonial rulers were not caught up with all the local feuds. I.E.> The raj did not care whether the fuzzies or the wuzzies had the relics, their primary concern was that there was not a bloody fight over who had them.
That is he. Should be on the reading list.
Cameroon IQ, 70 is the mean, Might be part of the problem.
Anyone who knows anything about the city of Detroit and its government knows that it is no different than many African Kleptocracy's
over the years, several FReepers have tried to bean me with Hernando De Soto (iirc: carry-okie, tpaine, congressman billybob, among others)
as my noggin is small and pointy, they have all missed :)
does de Soto base his thinking on economics/property on a fundamental understanding of an individual's time? if he does not, I don't see that I'll have much use for him
America is the shining example of what a society of free people can achieve in a relatively short period of time. Edmund Burke, in his 1775 "Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies," elaborated on the outstanding economic accomplishments of the colonists in America, even before their independence and subsequent Constitution.
America, under a written Constitution, became a beacon of liberty and the breadbasket of the world, taking the tired and poor from other lands, many of whom, upon arriving in America achieved great wealth by serving the needs of others (just as Adam Smith had observed).
Two hundred years later, we have so-called "educated" Americans, like John Edwards, studying poverty, as if Adam Smith and the American experiment had never happened!
The problem is that the political agenda of the Far Left in America today (represented by the Edwardses and Kerrys) requires coercive political (government) control and is not consistent with the ideas of liberty upon which America was founded and which Adam Smith wisely observed were the "causes of the wealth of nations."
So much for poverty! Let's hear it for the freedom that allows even the poorest to become wealthy by meeting the needs of their fellowmen.
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